Montgomery getting new, free clinic with support from Beacon Center, Five Horizons
The Rev. Richard Williams opened the Beacon Center in 2022 as a ministry of Metropolitan United Methodist Church. Located in west Montgomery, it was meant to be a place where people who needed help could find it — whether in the form of food, advice, or health screenings.
Just two months past the center’s one-year anniversary, it’s already opening an expansion.
The Five Horizons at the Beacon Center will be a free clinic where anyone in the community can receive medical care, regardless of insurance or financial status.
One of the Beacon Center’s primary goals is to remove barriers from the lives of Montgomery community members and help them build better lives. Access to health care is just another one of those barriers.
“We want to set up a footprint in that community, making it convenient, affordable and comprehensive,” Five Horizons CEO Billy Kirkpatrick said. “We are going to serve people whether they are insured, uninsured or underinsured.”
Kirkpatrick’s nonprofit originally launched in 1988 with the name West Alabama AIDS Outreach; now, it operates health clinics around Alabama and Mississippi. The Montgomery location in partnership with the Beacon Center is Five Horizon’s third clinic. The other two are in Tuscaloosa and Starkville, Miss.
All three clinics offer help that goes beyond medical needs. The Montgomery clinic will offer case management and social services, behavioral health services, sexual health education and risk reduction counseling in addition to standard primary care and STI testing and treatment.
“I’m very thankful for the collaboration with even having a social worker present,” Williams said. “Many of our neighbors have many different issues, and sometimes they need that case management.”
Starting as early as next week, patients can visit the clinic at 3091 Gaston Ave. — just south of W. Fairview Avenue near I-65 — between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. As the clinic opens, it will offer services only on weekdays.
Kirkpatrick said the team will evaluate the needs of the community and ensure that the times they are open best serve the community. The clinic will also look to adjust the services it offers based on what seems to be the community’s greatest need moving forward.
Hadley Hitson covers children's health, education and welfare for the Montgomery Advertiser. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: New free health care clinic opening in west Montgomery
